Entry 106-1

Road To The Classic With Denny Brauer

Bet On the Backup Plan

Editor's Note: In every season of tournament bass fishing, several events generally occur that either can make or break a fisherman's opportunity to participate in the biggest fishing tournament of the year, the Bassmasters Classic. This week, Strike King Pro Denny Brauer of Camdenton, Missouri, will share with us the times over this past year that he's been at the "make it or break it" point with the Classic, and what tactics he's used to ensure his place in this year's Bassmasters Classic.

Brauer: To make the Classic year after year, most fishermen don't do anything different than they normally do. Maybe sometimes the stars just line up a little differently, and you're luckier than you are at other times. Some years you may get scheduled to fish in tournaments on lakes that lend themselves to your style of fishing better than you do in other lakes. A combination of factors comes together that allow you to fish better some years than you do other years.

When I'm fishing in a tournament, I don't really think about the Classic. I'm only concentrating on how I'm going to win that tournament I'm currently fishing. But, I do know, in a tournament, that once I get a feel for what the bass are doing, and more importantly, what the competition is doing, I can get a pretty good read on how I'm going to do in that tournament. If there's a secret to my success in bass fishing, it is that I try to find a way to catch bass or a place to catch bass that other fishermen haven't figured out yet. Once I determine what the competition is doing and what the bass on the lake are doing, then I can get a pretty good idea of how I'll finish in the tournament, if we don't get a drastic weather change or something else unforeseen doesn't happen.

For instance, at the Wheeler Open in the fall of 2003, I really thought I had a very good chance of winning the event because I was getting a lot of bites in areas no one else was fishing. I was fishing visible wood cover in remote spots where I wasn't seeing any other boats. Most of the other boats were fishing in the other places where tournaments had been won on this lake before. But then, just before the tournament, the Wheeler area had a big rain that flushed out all the creeks. Luckily I had a backup pattern on the lower end of the lake where there was a lot of boat traffic. I was able to fish that backup pattern and catch a decent limit of bass on the first day.

I knew a couple of key docks that usually always held good-sized bass at Wheeler. I was able to get to those docks before anyone else did and caught three good fish off them, fishing the Strike King Denny Brauer Jig with the Strike King's new chunk. I was using a 1/2-ounce jig. In the middle of the day, I went to another dock and caught three more good bass and was able to cull one of the bass I'd taken in the morning. Although other people were fishing these same docks, I hit the docks at the time the bass wanted the bait I had, and I was concentrating on making the right presentation to the fish at each of those docks. Being able to salvage that first day on Wheeler with my backup plan, after my number-one pattern got washed away, built up my confidence for me this past year.




 

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